Revelation 13

Re 13:1-18.

VISION OF THE

BEAST THAT

CAME

OUT OF THE

SEA:

THE

SECOND

BEAST,

OUT OF THE

EARTH,

EXERCISING THE

POWER OF THE

FIRST

BEAST, AND

CAUSING THE

EARTH TO

WORSHIP

HIM.

1. I stood--So B, Aleph, and Coptic read. But A,

C, Vulgate, and Syriac, "He stood." Standing on

the sand of the sea, HE gave his power to the beast that

rose out of the sea.

upon the sand of the sea--where the four winds were to be

seen striving upon the great sea

(Da 7:2).

beast--Greek, "wild beast." Man becomes "brutish" when he

severs himself from God, the archetype and true ideal, in whose image

he was first made, which ideal is realized by the man Christ Jesus.

Hence, the world powers seeking their own glory, and not God's, are

represented as beasts; and Nebuchadnezzar, when in

self-deification he forgot that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of

men," was driven among the beasts. In

Da 7:4-7

there are four beasts: here the one beast expresses the

sum-total of the God-opposed world power viewed in its universal

development, not restricted to one manifestation alone, as Rome. This

first beast expresses the world power attacking the Church more from

without; the second, which is a revival of, and minister to, the first,

is the world power as the false prophet corrupting and

destroying the Church from within.

out of the sea--

(Da 7:3;

compare Note, see on

Re 8:8);

out of the troubled waves of peoples, multitudes, nations, and

tongues. The earth

(Re 13:11),

on the other hand, means the consolidated, ordered world of nations,

with its culture and learning.

seven heads and ten horns--A, B, and C transpose, "ten horns and

seven heads." The ten horns are now put first (contrast the order,

Re 12:3)

because they are crowned. They shall not be so till the last stage of

the fourth kingdom (the Roman), which shall continue until the fifth

kingdom, Christ's, shall supplant it and destroy it utterly; this last

stage is marked by the ten toes of the two feet of the image in

Da 2:33, 41, 42.

The seven implies the world power setting up itself as God, and

caricaturing the seven Spirits of God; yet its true character as

God-opposed is detected by the number ten accompanying the

seven. Dragon and beast both wear crowns, but the former on the heads,

the latter on the horns

(Re 12:3; 13:1).

Therefore, both heads and horns refer to kingdoms; compare

Re 17:7, 10, 12,

"kings" representing the kingdoms whose heads they are. The

seven kings, as peculiarly powerful--the great powers of the

world--are distinguished from the ten, represented by the horns

(simply called "kings,"

Re 17:12).

In Daniel, the ten mean the last phase of the world power, the

fourth kingdom divided into ten parts. They are connected with

the seventh head

(Re 17:12),

and are as yet future [AUBERLEN]. The mistake of

those who interpret the beast to be Rome exclusively, and the ten

horns to mean kingdoms which have taken the place of Rome in Europe

already, is, the fourth kingdom in the image has TWO legs, representing the eastern as well as the

western empire; the ten toes are not upon the one foot (the west), as

these interpretations require, but on the two (east and west) together,

so that any theory which makes the ten kingdoms belong to the west

alone must err. If the ten kingdoms meant were those which sprung up on

the overthrow of Rome, the ten would be accurately known, whereas

twenty-eight different lists are given by so many interpreters, making

in all sixty-five kingdoms! [TYSO in DE BURGH]. The seven heads are the

seven world monarchies, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome,

the Germanic empire, under the last of which we live [AUBERLEN], and which devolved for a time on Napoleon,

after Francis, emperor of Germany and king of Rome, had resigned the

title in 1806. FABER explains the healing of

the deadly wound to be the revival of the Napoleonic dynasty after

its overthrow at Waterloo. That secular dynasty, in alliance with the

ecclesiastical power, the Papacy

(Re 13:11,

&c.), being "the eighth head," and yet "of the seven"

(Re 17:11),

will temporarily triumph over the saints, until destroyed in Armageddon

(Re 19:17-21).

A Napoleon, in this view, will be the Antichrist, restoring the Jews to

Palestine, and accepted as their Messiah at first, and afterwards

fearfully oppressing them. Antichrist, the summing up and concentration

of all the world evil that preceded, is the eighth, but yet one of the

seven

(Re 17:11).

crowns--Greek, "diadems."

name of blasphemy--So C, Coptic, and

ANDREAS. A, B, and Vulgate read, "names of

blasphemy," namely, a name on each of the heads; blasphemously

arrogating attributes belonging to God alone (compare Note, see

on

Re 17:3).

A characteristic of the little horn in

Da 7:8, 20, 21;

2Th 2:4.

2. leopard . . . bear . . . lion--This beast

unites in itself the God-opposed characteristics of the three preceding

kingdoms, resembling respectively the leopard, bear, and

lion. It rises up out of the sea, as Daniel's four

beasts, and has ten horns, as Daniel's fourth beast, and

seven heads, as Daniel's four beasts had in all, namely, one on the

first, one on the second, four on the third, and one on the fourth.

Thus it represents comprehensively in one figure the world power

(which in Daniel is represented by four) of all times and

places, not merely of one period and one locality, viewed as

opposed to God; just as the woman is the Church of all ages.

This view is favored also by the fact, that the beast is the vicarious

representative of Satan, who similarly has seven heads and

ten horns: a general description of his universal power in all

ages and places of the world. Satan appears as a serpent, as being the

archetype of the beast nature

(Re 12:9).

"If the seven heads meant merely seven Roman emperors, one cannot

understand why they alone should be mentioned in the original image of

Satan, whereas it is perfectly intelligible if we suppose them to

represent Satan's power on earth viewed collectively" [AUBERLEN].

3. One of--literally, "from among."

wounded . . . healed--twice again repeated

emphatically

(Re 13:12, 14);

compare

Re 17:8, 11,

"the beast that was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the

bottomless pit" (compare

Re 13:11);

the Germanic empire, the seventh head (revived in the eighth),

as yet future in John's time

(Re 17:10).

Contrast the change whereby Nebuchadnezzar, being humbled from his

self-deifying pride, was converted from his beast-like form and

character to MAN'S form and true position towards

God; symbolized by his eagle wings being plucked, and himself

made to stand upon his feet as a man

(Da 7:4).

Here, on the contrary, the beast's head is not changed into a

human head, but receives a deadly wound, that is, the world

kingdom which this head represents does not truly turn to God, but for

a time its God-opposed character remains paralyzed ("as it were slain";

the very words marking the beast's outward resemblance to the Lamb, "as

it were slain," see on

Re 5:6.

Compare also the second beast's resemblance to the Lamb,

Re 13:11).

Though seemingly slain (Greek for "wounded"), it remains

the beast still, to rise again in another form

(Re 13:11).

The first six heads were heathenish, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia,

Greece, Rome; the new seventh world power (the pagan German hordes

pouring down on Christianized Rome), whereby Satan had hoped to stifle

Christianity

(Re 11:15, 16),

became itself Christianized (answering to the beast's, as it were,

deadly wound: it was slain, and it is not,

Re 17:11).

Its ascent out of the bottomless pit answers to the healing

of its deadly wound

(Re 17:8).

No essential change is noticed in Daniel as effected by Christianity

upon the fourth kingdom; it remains essentially God-opposed to the

last. The beast, healed of its temporary and external

wound, now returns, not only from the sea, but from the

bottomless pit, whence it draws new Antichristian strength of

hell

(Re 13:3, 11, 12, 14;

Re 11:7; 17:8).

Compare the seven evil spirits taken into the temporarily

dispossessed, and the last state worse than the first,

Mt 12:43-45.

A new and worse heathenism breaks in upon the Christianized world, more

devilish than the old one of the first heads of the beast. The latter

was an apostasy only from the general revelation of God in nature and

conscience; but this new one is from God's revelation of love in His

Son. It culminates in Antichrist, the man of sin, the son of perdition

(compare

Re 17:11);

2Th 2:3;

compare

2Ti 3:1-4,

the very characteristics of old heathenism

(Ro 1:29-32)

[AUBERLEN]. More than one wound seems to me to be

meant, for example, that under Constantine (when the pagan worship of

the emperor's image gave way to Christianity), followed by the healing,

when image worship and the other papal errors were introduced into the

Church; again, that at the Reformation, followed by the lethargic

form of godliness without the power, and about to end in the

last great apostasy, which I identify with the second beast

(Re 13:11),

Antichrist, the same seventh world power in another form.

wondered after--followed with wondering gaze.

4. which gave--A, B, C, Vulgate, Syriac, and

ANDREAS read, "because he gave."

power--Greek, "the authority" which it had;

its authority.

Who is like unto the beast?--The very language appropriated to

God,

Ex 15:11

(whence, in the Hebrew, the Maccabees took their name; the

opponents of the Old Testament Antichrist, Antiochus);

Ps 35:10; 71:19; 113:5;

Mic 7:18;

blasphemously

(Re 13:1, 5)

assigned to the beast. It is a parody of the name "Michael" (compare

Re 12:7),

meaning, "Who is like unto God?"

5. blasphemies--So ANDREAS reads. B reads

"blasphemy." A, "blasphemous things" (compare

Da 7:8; 11:25).

power--"authority"; legitimate power (Greek,

"exousia").

to continue--Greek, "poiesai," "to act," or

"work." B reads, "to make war" (compare

Re 13:4).

But A, C, Vulgate, Syriac, and ANDREAS omit

"war."

forty . . . two month--(See on

Re 11:2, 3;

Re 12:6).

6. opened . . . mouth--The usual formula in the case

of a set speech, or series of speeches.

Re 13:6, 7

expand

Re 13:5.

blasphemy--So B and ANDREAS. A and C read

"blasphemies."

and them--So Vulgate, Coptic,

ANDREAS, and PRIMASIUS read.

A and C omit "and": "them that dwell (literally, 'tabernacle') in

heaven," mean not only angels and the departed souls of the righteous,

but believers on earth who have their citizenship in heaven, and whose

true life is hidden from the Antichristian persecutor in the secret

of God's tabernacle. See on

Re 12:12;

Joh 3:7.

7. power--Greek, "authority."

all kindreds . . . tongues . . .

nations--Greek, "every tribe . . . tongue

. . . nation." A, B, C, Vulgate, Syriac,

ANDREAS, and PRIMASIUS add

"and people," after "tribe" or "kindred."

8. all that dwell upon the earth--being of earth earthy; in

contrast to "them that dwell in heaven."

whose names are not written--A, B, C, Syriac, Coptic, and

ANDREAS read singular, "(every one) whose

(Greek, 'hou'; but B, Greek, 'hon,' plural)

name is not written."

Lamb slain from the foundation of the world--The Greek

order of words favors this translation. He was slain in the

Father's eternal counsels: compare

1Pe 1:19, 20,

virtually parallel. The other way of connecting the words is, "Written

from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb

slain." So in

Re 17:8.

The elect. The former is in the Greek more obvious and simple.

"Whatsoever virtue was in the sacrifices, did operate through Messiah's

death alone. As He was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the

world," so all atonements ever made were only effectual by His blood"

[BISHOP PEARSON,

Exposition of the Creed].

9. A general exhortation. Christ's own words of monition calling

solemn attention.

10. He that leadeth into captivity--A, B, C, and Vulgate

read, "if any one (be) for captivity."

shall go into captivity--Greek present, "goeth into

captivity." Compare

Jer 15:2,

which is alluded to here. Aleph, B, and C read simply, "he goeth

away," and omit "into captivity." But A and Vulgate support the

words.

he that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the

sword--So B and C read. But A reads, "if any (is for) being

(literally, 'to be') killed with the sword." As of old, so now, those

to be persecuted by the beast in various ways, have their trials

severally appointed them by God's fixed counsel. English Version

is quite a different sense, namely, a warning to the persecutors that

they shall be punished with retribution in kind.

Here--"Herein": in bearing their appointed sufferings lies the

patient endurance . . . of the saints. This is to be

the motto and watchword of the elect during the period of the world

kingdom. As the first beast is to be met by patience and

faith

(Re 13:10),

the second beast must be opposed by true wisdom

(Re 13:18).

11. another beast--"the false prophet."

out of the earth--out of society civilized, consolidated, and

ordered, but still, with all its culture, of earth earthy: as

distinguished from "the sea," the troubled agitations of various

peoples out of which the world power and its several kingdoms have

emerged. "The sacerdotal persecuting power, pagan and

Christian; the pagan priesthood making an image of the emperors

which they compelled Christians to worship, and working wonders by

magic and omens; the Romish priesthood, the inheritors of pagan rites,

images, and superstitions, lamb-like in Christian professions,

dragon-like in word and act" [ALFORD, and so the

Spanish Jesuit, LACUNZA, writing under the name

BEN EZRA]. As the first beast

was like the Lamb in being, as it were, wounded to death, so the

second is like the Lamb in having two lamb-like horns (its

essential difference from the Lamb is marked by its having

TWO, but the Lamb SEVEN

horns,

Re 5:6).

The former paganism of the world power, seeming to be wounded to death

heathendom ministering to the former, and having earthly culture and

learning to recommend it. The second beast's, or false prophet's rise,

coincides in time with the healing of the beast's deadly wound and its

revival

(Re 13:12-14).

Its manifold character is marked by the Lord

(Mt 24:11, 24),

"Many false prophets shall rise," where He is speaking of the

last days. As the former beast corresponds to the first four beasts of

Daniel, so the second beast, or the false prophet, to the little horn

starting up among the ten horns of the fourth beast. This

Antichristian horn has not only the mouth of blasphemy

(Re 13:5),

but also "the eyes of man"

(Da 7:8):

the former is also in the first beast

(Re 13:1, 5),

but the latter not so. "The eyes of man" symbolize cunning and

intellectual culture, the very characteristic of "the false prophet"

(Re 13:13-15;

Re 16:14).

The first beast is physical and political; the second a spiritual

power, the power of knowledge, ideas (the favorite term in the French

school of politics), and scientific cultivation. Both alike are

beasts, from below, not from above; faithful allies, worldly

Antichristian wisdom standing in the service of the worldly

Antichristian power: the dragon is both lion and serpent: might and

cunning are his armory. The dragon gives his external power to the

first beast

(Re 13:2),

his spirit to the second, so that it speaks as a dragon

(Re 13:11).

The second, arising out of the earth, is in

Re 11:7; 17:8,

said to ascend out of the bottomless pit: its very culture and

world wisdom only intensify its infernal character, the pretense to

superior knowledge and rationalistic philosophy (as in the primeval

temptation,

Ge 3:5, 7,

"their EYES [as here] were opened") veiling the

deification of nature, self, and man. Hence spring Idealism,

Materialism, Deism, Pantheism, Atheism. Antichrist shall be the

culmination. The Papacy's claim to the double power, secular and

spiritual, is a sample and type of the twofold beast, that out of

the sea, and that out of the earth, or bottomless

pit. Antichrist will be the climax, and final form. PRIMASIUS OF ADRUMENTUM, in the

sixth century, says, "He feigns to be a lamb that he may assail the

Lamb--the body of Christ."

12. power--Greek, "authority."

before him--"in his presence"; as ministering to, and upholding

him. "The non-existence of the beast embraces the whole Germanic

Christian period. The healing of the wound and return of the beast is

represented [in regard to its final Antichristian manifestation

though including also, meanwhile, its healing and return under Popery,

which is baptized heathenism] in that principle which, since 1789, has

manifested itself in beast-like outbreaks" [AUBERLEN].

which dwell therein--the earthly-minded. The Church becomes the

harlot: the world's political power, the Antichristian

beast; the world's wisdom and civilization, the false

prophet. Christ's three offices are thus perverted: the first beast

is the false kingship; the harlot, the false priesthood;

the second beast, the false prophet. The beast is the

bodily, the false prophet the intellectual, the harlot

the spiritual power of Antichristianity

[AUBERLEN]. The Old-Testament Church stood

under the power of the beast, the heathen world power: the

Middle-Ages Church under that of the harlot: in modern times

the false prophet predominates. But in the last days all these

God-opposed powers which have succeeded each other shall

co-operate, and raise each other to the most terrible and

intense power of their nature: the false prophet causes men to

worship the beast, and the beast carries the harlot. These three

forms of apostasy are reducible to two: the apostate Church and

the apostate world, pseudo-Christianity and

Antichristianity, the harlot and the beast; for the false

prophet is also a beast; and the two beasts, as different

manifestations of the same beast-like principle, stand in

contradistinction to the harlot, and are finally judged together,

whereas separate judgment falls on the harlot [AUBERLEN].

deadly wound--Greek, "wound of death."

13. wonders--Greek, "signs."

so that--so great that.

maketh fire--Greek, "maketh even fire." This is the very

miracle which the two witnesses perform, and which Elijah long ago had

performed; this the beast from the bottomless pit, or the false

prophet, mimics. Not merely tricks, but miracles of a demoniacal kind,

and by demon aid, like those of the Egyptian magicians, shall be

wrought, most calculated to deceive; wrought "after the working

(Greek, 'energy') of Satan."

14. deceiveth them that dwell on the earth--the earthly-minded,

but not the elect. Even a miracle is not enough to warrant

belief in a professed revelation unless that revelation be in harmony

with God's already revealed will.

"on account of (because of; in consequence of) those miracles."

which he had power to do--Greek, "which were given him to

do."

in the sight of the beast--"before him"

(Re 13:12).

which--A, B, and C read, "who"; marking, perhaps, a personal

Antichrist.

had--So B and ANDREAS read. But A, C, and

Vulgate read, "hath."

15. he had power--Greek, "it was given to him."

to give life--Greek, "breath," or "spirit."

image--Nebuchadnezzar set up in Dura a golden image to be

worshipped, probably of himself; for his dream had been interpreted,

"Thou art this head of gold"; the three Hebrews who refused to worship

the image were east into a burning furnace. All this typifies

the last apostasy. PLINY, in his letter to Trajan,

states that he consigned to punishment those Christians who would not

worship the emperor's image with incense and wine. So

JULIAN, the apostate, set up his own image with

the idols of the heathen gods in the Forum, that the Christians in

doing reverence to it, might seem to worship the idols. So

Charlemagne's image was set up for homage; and the Pope adored

the new emperor [DUPIN, vol. 6, p. 126]. Napoleon,

the successor of Charlemagne, designed after he had first lowered the

Pope by removing him to Fontainebleau, then to "make an idol of him"

[Memorial de Sainte Helene]; keeping the Pope near him, he

would, through the Pope's influence, have directed the religious, as

well as the political world. The revived Napoleonic dynasty may, in

some one representative, realize the project, becoming the beast

supported by the false prophet (perhaps some openly infidel supplanter

of the papacy, under a spiritual guise, after the harlot, or apostate

Church, who is distinct from the second beast, has been stripped and

judged by the beast,

Re 17:16);

he then might have an image set up in his honor as a test of secular

and spiritual allegiance.

speak--"False doctrine will give a spiritual, philosophical

appearance to the foolish apotheosis of the creaturely personified by

Antichrist" [AUBERLEN].

JEROME, on Daniel 7, says, Antichrist shall be

"one of the human race in whom the whole of Satan shall dwell bodily."

Rome's speaking images and winking pictures of the Virgin Mary

and the saints are an earnest of the future demoniacal miracles of the

false prophet in making the beast's or Antichrist's image to speak.

16. to receive a mark--literally, "that they should give them a

mark"; such a brand as masters stamp on their slaves, and monarchs on

their subjects. Soldiers voluntarily punctured their arms with marks of

the general under whom they served. Votaries of idols branded

themselves with the idol's cipher or symbol. Thus Antiochus Epiphanes

branded the Jews with the ivy leaf, the symbol of Bacchus

(2 Maccabees 6:7; 3 Maccabees 2:29).

Contrast God's seal and name in the foreheads of His

servants,

Re 7:3; 14:1; 22:4;

and

Ga 6:17,

"I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus," that is, I am His

soldier and servant. The mark in the right hand and forehead implies

the prostration of bodily and intellectual powers to the

beast's domination. "In the forehead by way of profession; in

the hand with respect to work and service" [AUGUSTINE].

17. And--So A, B, and Vulgate read. C,

IRENÆUS, 316, Coptic, and

Syriac omit it.

might buy--Greek, "may be able to buy."

the mark, or the name--Greek, "the mark (namely), the

name of the beast." The mark may be, as in the case of the sealing of

the saints in the forehead, not a visible mark, but symbolical of

allegiance. So the sign of the cross in Popery. The Pope's interdict

has often shut out the excommunicate from social and commercial

intercourse. Under the final Antichrist this shall come to pass in its

most violent form.

number of his name--implying that the name has some numerical

meaning.

18. wisdom--the armory against the second beast, as patience

and faith against the first. Spiritual wisdom is needed to

solve the mystery of iniquity, so as not to be beguiled by it.

count . . . for--The "for" implies the possibility of

our calculating or counting the beast's number.

the number of a man--that is, counted as men generally count. So

the phrase is used in

Re 21:17.

The number is the number of a man, not of God; he shall

extol himself above the power of the Godhead, as the

MAN of sin [AQUINAS].

Though it is an imitation of the divine name, it is only human.

six hundred threescore and six--A and Vulgate write the

numbers in full in the Greek. But B writes merely the three

Greek letters standing for numbers, Ch, X, St. "C reads"

616, but IRENÆUS, 328, opposes this and

maintains "666." IRENÆUS, in the second

century, disciple of POLYCARP, John's disciple,

explained this number as contained in the Greek letters of

Lateinos (L being thirty; A, one; T, three hundred; E, five; I,

ten; N, fifty; O, seventy; S, two hundred). The Latin is

peculiarly the language of the Church of Rome in all her official acts;

the forced unity of language in ritual being the counterfeit of the

true unity; the premature and spurious anticipation of the real unity,

only to be realized at Christ's coming, when all the earth shall speak

"one language"

(Zep 3:9).

The last Antichrist may have a close connection with Rome, and so the

name Lateinos (666) may apply to him. The Hebrew letters

of Balaam amount to 666 [BUNSEN]; a type of

the false prophet, whose characteristic, like Balaam's, will be

high spiritual knowledge perverted to Satanic ends. The number

six is the world number; in 666 it occurs in units, tens, and

hundreds. It is next neighbor to the sacred seven, but is

severed from it by an impassable gulf. It is the number of the world

given over to judgment; hence there is a pause between the sixth

and seventh seals, and the sixth and seventh trumpets. The judgments on

the world are complete in six; by the fulfilment of

seven, the kingdoms of the world become Christ's. As

twelve is the number of the Church, so six, its half, symbolizes

the world kingdom broken. The raising of the six to tens and hundreds

(higher powers) indicates that the beast, notwithstanding his

progression to higher powers, can only rise to greater ripeness for

judgment. Thus 666, the judged world power, contrasts with the 144,000

sealed and transfigured ones (the Church number, twelve, squared and

multiplied by one thousand, the number symbolizing the world pervaded

of God) [AUBERLEN]. The "mark" (Greek,

"charagma") and "name" are one and the same. The first two

radical letters of Christ (Greek, "Christos"),

Ch and R, are the same as the first two of

charagma, and were the imperial monogram of Christian Rome.

Antichrist, personating Christ, adopts a symbol like, but not agreeing

with, Christ's monogram, Ch, X, St; whereas the radicals in

"Christ" are Ch, R, St. Papal Rome has similarly substituted the

standard of the Keys for the standard of the Cross; so on

the papal coinage (the image of power,

Mt 22:20).

The two first letters of "Christ," Ch, R, represent seven

hundred, the perfect number. The Ch, X, St represent an

imperfect number, a triple falling away (apostasy) from

septenary perfection [WORDSWORTH].